H+F Fashion on the Edge collection

Collection Fashion on the Edge - Not Yet

H+F Fashion on the Edge
Fashion as Point of Departure
16 October 2010 - 30 January 2011

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is showcasing a selection of works from the H+F Fashion on the Edge Foundation’s collection in a small fashion exhibition. Four purchases of work by designers Hussein Chalayan, Klavers van Engelen, Alet Pilon and Pyuupiru will be on display in the museum for more than three months.

H+F Fashion on the Edge Foundation, an initiative by collector Han Nefkens, collects unusual fashion items and takes part in projects that explore the boundaries of fashion. In 2010 H+F Fashion on the Edge Foundation entered into a five-year agreement with Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to monitor future developments at the interface of fashion and art, with a focus on non-western designers. As part of the agreement, purchases are being made and various events are being staged: a biennial H+F Fashion Award and an annual presentation. All the purchases will be housed in the museum as long-term loans.

Fashion as Point of Departure
This autumn H+F Fashion on the Edge Foundation is putting together a modest presentation of four recent purchases from fashion designers Hussein Chalayan, Klavers van Engelen, Alet Pilon and Pyuupiru. Pilon’s work is, as it were, a still life with beings that exist in the twilight zone between life and death. The Japanese transgender artist Pyuupiru (1983) uses his / her own body as the starting point, and the hand-knitted object Mercury is an expression of this. A dress and a large laser hat by designer Chalayan will be on display. The Klavers van Engelen duo will be exhibiting a dress with a blown-glass accessory in a setting of glass and mirrors.

Fashion and film
All these designers regularly use film, photography, installations and performances to express the ideas in their work to the full. What these four objects and installations have in common is that they have been created from the perspective of fashion. The works are sculptures in their own right, of which the clothing is a part. This year the IFFR is devoting a season of films to the relationship between fashion and film, which will also include films by Pyuupiru and Hussein Chalayan

Award
The biennial H+F Fashion Award presented to an artist who works at the interface of fashion began in 2008. Christophe Coppens received the award in 2008 and this year’s winner is Charles LeDray, whose installation Men’s Suits was on show in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen earlier this year. The next winner will be chosen in 2012.

The Art of Fashion
Over the last five years the H+F Fashion on the Edge Foundation has built up a collection of works by designers who include Viktor & Rolf, Hussein Chalayan and Naomi Filmer. In 2009 the foundation staged The Art of Fashion: Installing Allusions in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, an exhibition that explored the interface between art and fashion. Viktor & Rolf, Hussein Chalayan, Naomi Filmer, Christophe Coppens and Anna-Nicole Ziesche were given the opportunity to make a special work for it. This exhibition opens in the Kunstmuseum in Wolfsburg, Germany on 5 March.